Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

Rose, her face scrubbed and gleaming, the diamonds dazzling at her throat, towers above the women and most of the men as Pan hauls her and Rafferty along behind him, introducing them right and left as proudly as if he’d just whipped them up in the kitchen. He pretends not to see the stiffness with which they are met.

It usually takes a moment for the stiffness to set in. Rafferty can almost see the thoughts chase each other through people’s heads as they first look at Rose: She’s beautiful. Maybe she’s someone I should recognize. Hmmmm, very dark-skinned, low bridge of the nose-Isaan. Oh, of course, she’s one of Pan’s little popsies.

Pan not only ignores the stiffness, he intensifies it. He has a trick of taking between both of his hands one of the hands of the woman he is greeting and then, when he introduces Rose, putting Rose’s hand into the woman’s. Some of the women manage the situation; their breeding comes to the fore, and they hold on to Rose’s hand and make conversation as though they had grown up neighbors, rather than on the opposite sides of one of the world’s widest gulfs of power and possession. The others-mostly, Rafferty thinks-those who fought their way into rooms such as these, go rigid. They actually tilt slightly backward, as though Rose smelled bad, and they snatch their hands away the moment Pan lets go.

At first Rafferty is worried about how Rose will handle the rejection, but this is a woman who stepped onstage nightly in a crowded, testosterone-filled bar, wearing little more than an attitude. The women who try to escape her learn that she is eagerly friendly, that she will follow them, puppylike, as they back away across the marble floor. She asks them the kinds of questions they would be asked in a small village: How many children do they have, how old, were the births painful, how do they get their hair to do that?

The woman Rafferty likes least retrieves her hand and wipes it on her thigh. Her eyes go to Rafferty and then back to Rose, and he can almost see the word “whore” form in her mind. “I’ll bet there’s a fascinating story here,” she says in English, for Rafferty’s benefit. “Where in the world did you two meet?”

“The King’s Castle,” Rose says, the English name of the Patpong bar she danced in.

“The Royal Palace,” Pan translates into Thai.

“Really,” the woman says, her eyebrows elevated. “Were you on a tour?”

“Oh, no,” Rose says. “I worked there. For years.”

The woman hesitates for a second, weighing the probabilities, then says, “Doing what?”

“Guest relations,” Rose says with her sweetest smile.

The woman says, “Ah.”

Pan says to Rose, “You don’t need me,” and disappears.

Rafferty snags a passing waiter and grabs two flutes of pink champagne, and he and Rose wander the crowd. There is no question that Pan was right: Rose is easily the most beautiful woman present. The yellow diamonds throw hard little points of golden light on the flawless skin of her neck and the underside of her chin. Most of the men follow her with their eyes, and most of the women watch the men, although their gaze eventually floats to Rose. But Pan was wrong about one thing: Even when Rafferty is standing right beside Rose, there are people who pay attention to him. Men, three of them. He can feel their eyes on him and see them slide away when he turns.

They are scattered throughout the crowd as though some sort of territorial imperative were in operation, keeping them apart. Orbiting each of them is a muscular little knot of men, three or four of them, wearing dark suits of anonymous cut. These men keep their eyes in motion. Some of them wear discreet earplugs. When one of the men in the center wants a drink, one of the satellites peels off and goes to get it. When the drink bearer returns, he stands like a human tray with the drink extended until the top dog condescends to notice him.

The three men’s eyes keep flicking to Rafferty.

At eight-thirty the little orchestra, which is seated on a raised platform midway down one of the room’s walls, strikes up the triumphal march from Aida, and two long screens, painted with gold bamboo and blindingly iridescent hummingbirds, are folded back to reveal a room filled with food and white-jacketed waiters. There is a general movement toward the buffet, and Rafferty takes advantage of the shift in focus to navigate through the crowd to Pan’s side.

“Three men,” Rafferty says. “I’m going to describe them, but don’t look for them while we’re talking.”

“I won’t have to,” Pan says. “It’s good business to know your enemies.”

“High-ranking policeman,” Rafferty says. “Full uniform, fat, looks a little like a monkey-”

“Thanom,” Pan says. “Very bad. He runs a little squadron of killer cops. They scare people to death. He was one of the top cops who resisted the crackdown on drug dealers because he was taking so much money off them. Millions of baht a month.”

“Why is he here tonight?”

“His wife is ambitious. Got a set of claws and uses them to climb. Also, we were in business once, he and I. When we were both younger and poorer.” His eyes scan the room. “But most people are here to show me I can’t chase them away. They would rather this fund-raiser had been held anywhere else in the world. They’d prefer a rat-infested slum or a mountain of rubbish. But since I outbid all of them to host the event, they have to show up to prove they’ve got the balls.”

“Dark suit, short, mostly bald. Not skinny but gaunt, got a face like a skull. Not eating or drinking anything.”

“Porthip. He’s the guy who owns the cranes you see all over the city. Imports steel for skyscrapers. His steel partners are Tokyo yakuza. Once or twice they’ve sent him help when he needed to persuade builders that they were buying their steel in the wrong place.” Pan seems to be enjoying himself. “Three or four years back, one of the reluctant customers was found in Banglamphoo. And Pratunam. And Lumphini Park.”

“I get it.”

“Something very sharp,” Pan says. “Japanese sharp.”

“Does he live on air or something? He can’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds.”

“He’s lost maybe twenty kilos in the past year or so. Word is he’s got stomach cancer.” Pan looks around the room. “It’s a good thing we’re not raising money to cure that. Half the people here wouldn’t give a penny until Porthip is dead.”

“This last one’s harder,” Rafferty says. “Maybe the best-dressed man here, really beautiful suit. Late forties, early fifties, goes to the gym a lot-”

“In the middle of a gang of bodybuilders?”

“Right.”

“Mmmmm,” Pan says, the pink lips pushed out.

Rafferty says, “Mmmmmm?”

Pan pulls a cigar case from his jacket, opens it, and takes one out. He snaps the case closed without offering one to Rafferty. Then he stands there, looking down at his hands as though the cigar and the case come as a surprise to him. He opens the case, drops the cigar back in, and shoves the case back into his pocket. He smiles at Rafferty and takes his arm.

“Let’s eat,” he says.

20

Wrecking Ball

It takes Rafferty less than a minute in the privacy of Pan’s office to confirm that Thanom and Porthip are both on the yellow list.

While everyone eats and Pan proudly leads Rose around the room, Rafferty grabs Dr. Ravi. Dr. Ravi has a plate in his hand and doesn’t seem overly happy at the interruption.

“Where’s the list of the people who showed up tonight?” Rafferty asks.

“Down at the guardhouse.”

“Do me a favor? Call and tell them to show it to me. And can I borrow your swan?”

The swan starts with a purr. As Rafferty guides it back toward the gates, he becomes vividly aware that the stink from the pigpens has increased incrementally. Passing the ramshackle village, he sees the enormous fans that have been placed behind the pen, wafting the scent of merde de cochon toward the Garden of Eden.